Purdue Researcher Calls For Better Food Safety

A Purdue University researcher is advocating improved routine safety testing of the nation's food supply.

This comes shortly after Nestle USA voluntarily recalled 300,000 cases of Toll House cookie dough products linked with e.coli bacteria.

Bruce Applegate, Purdue Associate Professor of Food Science, says it’s a mystery how the strain of bacteria, which normally lives in animals like cattle, deer and sheep, showed up in a product like cookie dough.

Applegate says many factors come into play to spread a food-borne illness. They include plant equipment, workers' health and hygiene, water sources, bulk ingredients and packaging materials. All of the factors must be carefully examined to pinpoint the source of an outbreak.

Applegate is also the co-founder of a company that studies food-borne pathogenic bacteria. His company has developed a modified virus that makes food-borne bacteria luminescent or turn red.